No party like the fey's
by Slingerapen
Summary: Simon Lewis, after ascenscion, gains some downworlder friends, which means he gets invited to parties.


Kaelie is just a normal faerie kid in this fic who just wants to have a little fun. She's not evil and doesn't do the seelie queen's dirty work. Also this is technically the second chapter. A "prequel" will be added later. This fic takes the liberty with canon.

* * *

 **Chapter 1 – Even when I'm drunk**

"So it's like a human party?" Kaelie asked.

"It's a party held by humans with humans, yes," Simon said. "If that's a problem with you, we don't mind if you bring along some fey friends though. As long as you don't spike our drinks or whatever."

"Psshh," she said and waved her hand dismissively. "When have we ever done that!" She laughed with her mouth impossibly wide, showing off her row of small sharp teeth.

Simon played human songs on his guitar at her faerie parties sometimes, which she seemed to like. That's why he didn't feel like it was totally inappropriate to ask her to come to his party and meet his human band members. If anything, it was his friends he should be worried about.

The party would be after their gig in the Alto Bar. Surprisingly, people were guaranteed to come to both their concert and the party. Matt and Kirk had invited a couple of mutual friends over and Eric appeared not to be entirely friendless either, because his Facebook event had gotten a few non-ironic reactions from genuinely interested fans. Meanwhile, Simon would bring his shadowhunter "colleagues", which included Jace, so that was bound to be exciting. If that is a good thing, he didn't know yet.

Their band, although after his leave, had become pretty good. They had maintained the band name, which had given it a continuity so that people no longer got confused as to who it was they were listening to, and Matt no longer played like he accidentally the strings while snoozing. They had become performers, mainly favored by fans who could appreciate a little bit of storytelling on stage as Eric's loin fetish had gone past poetry when he had taken on the role of not only text writer, but designer of their costumes as well.

Simon, around the time when his days were too occupied with his vampirism and Clary's shadowhunter situation, had missed band practice a few times. Besides that, he had also been busy fighting bad guys in hell, so it wasn't like he could just call practice off, even though he too saw the importance in keeping up their schedule and their promise to each other. When he quit his band altogether during his shadowhunter academy years, he had missed them immensely. The Saturdays, normally preserved for blowing off steam at Eric's garage, had become an extra day of training and studying and his new friends couldn't simply replace his old ones.

Kaelie's faerie friends weren't half so bad. The amount of plus ones she had brought with her wasn't too staggering or inappropriate either. Kaelie had told him that they liked music too, because the fey folk were more likely not to do playful murder if they were interested in the same things as the people who went to and hosted the party. He pressed his palm to his forehead at that and let out a nervous laugh.

She introduced two guys, one blonde and the other brunette but both tall, and an equally tall girl with dark curls in a scarf updo. Even though they were still covered in obvious nature themes, they had dropped the actual twigs and leaves in their clothes.

He kept his eyes off the branches growing around their intestines and glanced between expectant colored eyes. The strain of trying to keep the shadow-world elements unhidden the entire night would be too exhausting, so he let the glamour be.

The blond one, apparently knowing Kirk or pretending to know him, high-fived him.

"Haha. Hey!" Kirk said and immediately accepted the greeting like he was trained to react on random instant friendships.

"Glad you could make it," Simon said and smiled. With them, the party was going to get pretty stacked and diverse. So far, so good.

"Want me to get that?" He gestured to the two large champagne bottles Kaelie held with her.

"Oh, you can't drink this," she said, smiling politely and walking past him.

"But if that's not meant for us–" he said in a low voice.

"Don't worry. We put glamour on it," she murmured back. "Just because we are terrible hosts doesn't mean we're not sensible guests."

"Alright, just checking."

"So we're just gonna ignore angel boy in the corner over there?" The tall girl faerie said to one of the guys and gestured to Jace leaning against the wall.

Now, Jace might not be that great of a mundane party guest, but he trusted that Clary and Alec could keep him occupied enough not to break out into strife.

"Oh my god Angie, live a little," Kaelie said and set the dangerous and potentially poisonous faerie liquid on the coffee table.

"Yeah Ang. Benefit of the doubt and all that," the dark haired faerie said. "Nice concert by the way. I'm Eren." He clapped Simon on his shoulder and whispered into his ear, "this is casual human social interaction, right? Sorry, I'm a little nervous. First mundane party and all."

The faerie towered over him. Simon could smell a freshly mowed grass scent he identified as faerie cologne on his neck. The big guy was being awfully considerate despite Simon feeling not at all comfortable with a hulking, unworldly faerie whispering in his ear with that soothing low voice admitting to him that he had no experience with how to act around humans.

"You're doing fine, man," he said truthfully and gave a shy smile. "And thanks."

"You thanks for inviting us," Eren said back. "We don't move out of our circles that often, if you get what I mean."

In fact, Simon did get what he meant.

Around him, the guests got settled. Isabelle showed Kaelie and Angie some music CD's from Eric's personal stock she recognized and Matt's friends kept the faerie guys occupied. They seemed to actively take in any strange cultural happening with watchful eyes and sharp ears. They danced a little out of place and spoke with too gentle words, but they picked up. Jace, meanwhile, looked like a bouncer ready to kick any offender back to the polluted park lake they came from.

Simon's job was to pace around the rooms and constantly check if there were enough snacks, and assuring that everybody had somebody to talk to. Sometimes he did a bit of dancing and fooling around with Isabelle, on her courtesy, saying he should try to have fun. He couldn't have fun. Besides Eric, he was the only responsible host and he had to make sure that this party wouldn't end in a complete apocalypse to happen. There was a limit to the snacks and not enough room to separate Jace and the faeries.

Eric's friends arrived some time later and with everybody getting along somewhat, it truly felt like a successful party. Simon didn't dare to put his fists on his hips just jet, but the feeling was there. Even Alec dared to talk with one or two of the mundanes with the assistance of Jace, who, by the way, hadn't gotten himself in a fight yet and seemed to enjoy himself, which was a rare sight.

He wondered where Alec's boyfriend was. Simon hadn't invited him in person, but he had expected him to bring him along. If that was not enough of an indicator, the guy also had a reputation of showing up to parties unannounced .

"So, where's Magnus?" he asked Alec and bounced against the wall. He hoped for a light conversation, but seeing as their interaction usually ended in either heartfelt confessions or awkward silences, he counted on the latter.

Alec shook awake from his trance and looked at him surprised. Jace had left him to hang around Clary, and his sister was catching up with Kaelie. He had been shuffling his feet on his own for a couple of minutes now, watching the humans with vigilant eyes from the safety lines on a chair against the wall.

"Uh, he is working," he said and glanced back to the crowd around him.

Simon couldn't blame him for being secretive. Alec is mostly familiar with shadowhunters, and although he knows that mundanes are accepting in general, Simon figured that he could not easily trust a crowd like this, which made it even stranger that Magnus wasn't here to keep him company.

"I didn't think he would let up the opportunity to party," Simon said.

"Yeah well, you see," Alec said. "This is a mundane party." His cheeks flushed. "No offense."

"None taken," Simon said. Then he grinned. "He would look pretty out of place in between my people, wouldn't he?"

Alec continued his people staring. His arms were crossed and he hunched his shoulders, like he expected something to happen. "You still consider them your people?" he asked.

Simon frowned. "Excuse me?"

"Wait– the Angel..." Alec closed his eyes and sagged his shoulders back against the chair. He breathed heavily in and out. "I'm sorry. I should just stick with Jace tonight."

Yep, the awkward convo route it is.

"It's ... Okay." Simon crossed his arms and let his ears follow the bobbing tunes of Macklemore while Alec's feet continued to tap softly with the beat. "I actually meant nerds though." Maybe not a nerd, but a comic fan was definitely something he could still say he identified as.

"Yeah, sorry. I'm not that good at recognizing mundanes." Then he added hastily, "and their subcultures."

Simon nodded. No point in making everything a big deal. "Figured that too. Well, as a former mundane, I can tell you that they are no more different than you and me."

Alec stared at the mass of chatting strangers in front of him. His eyes lingered on the fey.

"Only difference between you and me is that you don't know who Superman is."

"I've heard about this Superman," Alec said. "Who is he?"

Simon's eyes light up and a knowing smile formed on his lips. He might not be deeply rooted in his religion anymore, but this was the question he was born for to answer, and always could.

* * *

"Wait, does Simon actually have more friends than us?" Kirk said somewhere from a couch.

"What the fuck," said Matt from that same couch. "When did that happen?"

"Hey are you guys talking about me?" Simon plopped down on a chair next to Clary, allowing his legs some well deserved rest for at least two minutes. "I simply have the looks AND the charms."

"They're talking about me," Jace said, passing by and stealing some chips from Matt's bag. Clary made an adorable snooty face at him.

"For real," said Kirk. "Maybe we should go to military school too. You got like, super ripped."

Matt nodded. "Yeah, super ripped." He stuffed his face full with chips. His hands and mouth were greasy from the paprika spice.

"And those tall people are super handsome."

"God, the Kaelie chick is so hot." Matt shook his head.

Simon nodded without meaning to, and then hoped that Isabelle's super-powered Ferengi ears hadn't overheard him. Clary gave him a slap on the arm. "Whoops," Simon said.

"God, she is blazing," Kirk continued. "Where did you even find these guys?"

As if on cue, one of the faerie guys hopped in between Matt and Kirk while holding a beer, squashing them to the side and making Matt fling Lays over the arm of the couch. He stole Matt's snapback and put it properly (with the cap backwards) on his blonde head.

"If I told you, I'd have to kill you," the faerie said. His arms were spread behind the guys like a protective tipsy big brother.

Clary gave Simon a look.

"Literally," she said bemused while nibbling her chips. The guy nodded gravely.

"Damn, alright," Matt said. "Secretive."

The faerie pursed his lips like something inside his mouth was bothering him. "Yeah, damn," he said, pronouncing the words carefully as if to get used to them. He took a sip from his beer, clenching Kirk's head between his biceps.

"Oh god," Kirk breathed.

"Soooo, yeah," Matt said and wiggled himself free from his muscular and plushy prison and tossed the Lays bag on the table. "I'm gonna see where the booze is at."

The faerie held up his beer arm, releasing Kirk's red head. "Yeah!"

Kirk, still trapped between the beefy man and the couch, tried to wiggle free, but the faerie either didn't notice or was just there to mess with him. Regardless, he didn't budge.

"You're like freaking Thor," Kirk said with a groan and rubbed his neck. He looked him over and held out his hand from his cramped space. "Chris Hemsworth, right?"

"We have not introduced ourselves yet," Chris Hemsworth said and shook Kirk's right hand with his left hand. "You can call me Dion." He shook his left hand with all party representatives present (which included Clary, who they more often than not saw as their mascot). Simon wondered if that was really his name, or if they could call him that because his real name is not allowed to be known by humans. Dion plopped back in his seat, giving Kirk a little more space to sit. "So your music is pretty something, isn't it?"

Simon laughed. "Is that a compliment?" He knew the type of music they played at faerie parties; the mix of Jazz, Classic and psychedelic banshee yelling seemed to work for them. His guitar rifts must be too mellow for them for sure.

Dion shrugged. "It is very different than what I am used to. How long have you guys been playing?"

They talked about their band and music for a bit until Dion got dragged off to dance with the faerie girls, who introduced him to what the mundanes called "indie" and who whispered new cultural findings to him that they had been sucking up all evening.

"Where is Matt with the booze," Kirk said and left their small convo group too, leaving Clary and Simon alone.

Clary grabbed the bag and set down in the chair with a sigh. "Sorry for being so boring like usual," she said and grabbed the last bits from the bag.

"Nah, it's okay. As long as you're enjoying yourself, right?"

"Yeah, I guess."

Clary was not - had never been - the partying type, he knew that. She would've been on her phone constantly if all her friends hadn't been here at the party. To make outdoor socialization work, she had to constantly occupy herself with something, and Simon's band talk hadn't exactly been her area of expertise. Had she been given a pen and paper, she would've drawn his guests the entire evening, especially his downworlder guests, whose glamour was far too weak for Clary's keen angel eyes, but whose aesthetic triggered her dormant artistic side.

"How about we go dance?" he asked.

"That would be great," she said.

Simon pulled her up and they danced.

* * *

"So like Aeriel is like 'oh my gosh Eren (well, obviously not Eren because I'm not telling you weirdoes my real name) 'you should totally plant roses in your garden, because that's so romantic' and I am like, 'sure, why not, dad's been complaining that I don't keep up with the garden enough'. So I plant some red roses seeds and guess what?"

His conversation partners were not in the least bit interested in his story about flowers, and gave him a blank stare.

"Black ones came out!"

People left the group in favor of more interesting people. Simon listened with a half ear and stirred his coca cola. Luckily for Eren, Dion came up behind him and slapped him on the shoulder.

"Dude!" He shook his shoulder and let the word roll off his tongue like he didn't know if this was the appropriate subject to go "Dude!" over.

Either the music, fatigue, or the sweaty people were getting to him, or more guests were joining the party. Crap, did he have enough chips?

"Man, that's so awesome. You must have like... a gift for this. You're always growing the weirdest magic." He kept shaking his shoulder. Then he added, "man," as an afterthought.

Oh fuck, they were getting drunk.

"Hey, you guys might wanna keep it down about certain topics?" Simon murmured, but the faeries kept on stretching their weird, broad smiles and stared him down. "Alright, whatever," he said and absconded.

"Wait," someone's friend said with a bemused look on her face. "So you guys are like, gardeners?". The faeries laughed even harder.

"Dude, where the hell did you find military gardeners?" Eric asked Simon.

"I think it is high time to mess with them," Dion said and smirked. "Anyone want to dance?" He spread his arms and did not put them down before at least one girl took the bait. In the end, he flashed his biceps for two solid minutes until a girl took pity on him and asked if she could touch them.

Faeries do not need faerie drinks to put spells on humans. Sweet words and a little charm could make the girls dance well after they started to complain and their feet got sore. This strange party with all the music and mundane pop culture talk was a nice change of pace, but in their opinion, there is no party like the fey's.

* * *

Matt was a happy drunk and proved to be the spirit of the evening, knocking on everybody's proverbial door for some small talk, even though he didn't know most of the guests. His night passed with the haze of alcohol, snacks, and his vast array of comic references.

Normally it was Kirk without a filter on his mouth.

Matt's voice was slurred and he bounced sluggishly against Simon's shoulder. "Hey remember tha' time when you were a vampire?"

Simon froze. "Ha ha, you mean at Halloween?" He took a sip of his coke. What the?!

Angie looked at Matt with a mischievous curl on her lips and exchanged a glance with Simon. "Not a word," he murmured to her. She shrugged.

"And," Matt pointed to Kirk. "That was also the time when we had Kyle in the band, I think." He closed his eyes, sad in reminisce. "Man, Kyle was the best. His voice was the best. Better than yours, actually."

"Fuck you." Kirk said. Then he hesitated. "Okay, you're right. I can't argue with you over someone as perfect as Kyle. He was a worthy replacement." He nodded. "What even happened to that guy, though?"

"He was the singer?" Kaelie guessed, having chimed in on many conversations during the night and having shaped a small frame of reference of the band.

Kirk nodded. "Yeah. He came in our garage one day asking us if we needed a singer. Back then we did some experimental stuff - experimental, right?"

Simon nodded. "On off vocals anyway. Dunno if that counts as experimental."

"Yeah, that, so we didn't really need him, but he looked fine and he sung well so." He shrugged. "Whatever." He drank his beer.

"And then, like..." Angie said. "One day he just up and left or something?"

Simon was unsure if she really didn't know or if she was stoking fires. He liked to give her the benefit of the doubt, because she didn't know him or Kyle, but their conversation was threading dangerous grounds and he did not need anyone digging up old problems he couldn't explain.

"Bamf!" Matt said as if that explained it, and made an explosion with his hands.

"Yeah," Kirk said.

The faint feeling of unease crept in the back of their heads. They were silent.

Matt scratched his short, red hair and rubbed his eyes. "And he is just one par' of the big puzzle," he said. "D'you guys ever feel like you've got like, holes in your head? And, ha ha you guys, NOT because I'm tipsy! Because I know important things happened like years ago…I can't remember where you went back then." He pointed to Simon.

"What? I went to military school after graduation, remember?"

Kirk looked at Simon curiously. He had some drinks, but he was not tipsy and had still enough sense to figure out if some things Simon told them wouldn't match with what he remembered, if he could remember anything at all. This was not the first time he had mentioned things not lining up, and that made Simon nervous.

"Yeah, but I remember you not showing up to practice lots of times before that too," Kirk said and frowned.

Simon's mouth went dry. He looked down at his drink and thought not for the first time about just telling them the truth like he had done when he was a vampire, but that was of course against the law. He licked his lips instead of downing his drink.

He thought they had forgotten that he had been missing. He thought that their memory losses would prevent them from digging deeper than the surface and that, under the impression that he could slip back into his old life, he could join his band again without them distrusting. He thought that this would be kept hidden. He thought that, like many of their other issues, it would get put far back on a shelf so that nobody would notice it was there, because stuff happens and dust settles and people forget.

He took a sip of his coke.

"Well, duhh," Matt said as a matter-of-factly. "He had his vampire issues to work out. Right, buddy?" He smacked against Simon's shoulder again.

Kirk scoffed. "What the hell are you talking about, man?"

"Matt, you're drunk." Simon tried to laugh it off.

"Fuck yeah I am," he said. "I need to play some trumpets." He stumbled off. "Where the hell did mom put my djembes?"

Simon folded his arms and held up his shoulders. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said to Kirk. "I don't remember."

"Damn, alright," Kirk said. "Secretive."

He didn't bring it up for the rest of the night. Angie just smiled.

* * *

"I'm gonna go transform into a tree right about now. I can feel it. Going all dryads up in this mother."

"Hell yeah Dryads!" Kirk held out his fist for Eren to bump it.

"Man, did you guys spike your own drinks or something?" Simon sipped his coke. He would've had beer too if he didn't have to worry about an already reducing alcohol stock.

"Nah, it's just Eren. He can't hold his liquor. Especially no mundane drinks."

"Then what about that guy?" Simon asked and pointed to Dion with two girls on his arms like he was some kind of cartoon character.

Kaelie rolled her eyes. "Oh, he's always like that at parties."

Jace and Alec decided that this party had seen enough eloquent exhibitionists already and called it quits. Jace, to Simon's credit, had lasted long enough.

"Alright, big guy," Jace said. They each rested an arm around Eren's waist. "Party's over for you."

"But officer," Eren said and grinned like he was going to make the best joke ever in the history of drunk faeries. "You can't arrest a tree!"

Well, it wasn't a lie. And considering Jace and Alec were shadowhunters about to shelter a considerable group of humans from the potential exposition of a tree-loving shadow-world creature, Simon guessed he wasn't that far off.

Matt laughed in the background and shouted something along the lines of not having shared his weed with the guy. While Jace and Alec propped Eren up, Kirk shook his hand and exchanged numbers. Eren folded up the tiny paper and put it in his pocket, but told him he couldn't remember his number, or if he even had a phone.

"This is pretty embarrassing," Kaelie said and leaned against the wall. "I needed this."

"Huh?"

"I mean, fey parties are super exhausting. It's always about status, y'know. You always gotta have the best topics to talk about and you always have to dance until you can't stand up straight or else it's not worth to party at all. Here we can just sit down and talk about stuff we know nothing about and dance whenever we feel like it. For once, it's okay to be embarrassing."

"So that means I don't have to be embarrassed for inviting fey folk to a human party?"

"Well, if you're not embarrassed enough already, you can always invite us a second time." She winked.

"We shud do this ag'n sometime," Eren said to Kirk, but looked past him at Simon with dazed eyes and a dopey smile on his face.


End file.
